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Parshah Ki Tavo - A LESSON ON GRATITUDE
Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8 |
When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, 'I declare today to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.' (Deuteronomy 26:1-3)
This week's Torah Portion begins with a command to show gratitude. On entering the Land the Children of Israel were to observe the 'mitzvah of bikkurim', a command to bring the firstfruits of the land to the Lord in recognition of his faithfulness in doing all that he had promised.
There is a debate in Jewish sources about when they actually brought this offering of thanks to the Lord. Rashi, the famous C11th Jewish commentator, explains that it was not until the Jewish people under Joshua had conquered the land and it had been apportioned to the tribes that this mitzvah was brought to the Lord - a process that took 14 years. His reasoning is that Moses seems to say that you enter the Land, possess the Land, and then from your own land you bring the firstfruits of your harvest. The other implication of this is that it was to be a community offering. So they waited until everyone had his land and brought in this offering of thanks together. Other Jewish sources say that this offering was given immediately on entering the Land.
Rashi is trying to teach us that thankfulness and praise come from understanding what God has done for us. I recently read that the greatest blessing we have is the realisation that we are, in fact, blessed. In other words, knowing we are blessed is the starting place for our worship.
The other opinion that the firstfruits were brought in immediately speaks to the spontaneous nature of our thanks and gratitude to God. Each morning, as soon as a Jewish person wakes, he recites the Modeh Ani, a prayer of thankfulness - it is the only prayer recited without washing his hands and, although he is unclean, he is declaring that nothing can separate him from God, not even impurity; it is a declaration of the bond that exists between him and God. His first conscious thought of the day is directed towards God and is, in effect, the firstfruits of the day, akin to the mitzvah of bikkurim.
The purpose of the mitzvah of bikkurim is to remind us of the kindness of the Lord - it is about having a thankful heart. It also sets our priorities straight and reminds us that all the good things that we enjoy in life are from God, that he is the source of all our joys and blessings. The Psalmist wrote: You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:16).
This mitzvah - the command to be grateful - applies to you and me as we seek to serve the Lord and we need to hear God's heart on this. The Torah teaches the principle of blessing and curses; obedience releases the blessing of God upon the people and disobedience, not only loss of God's favour, but dreadful curses ... Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things ... (Deuteronomy 28:47).
Here we come face to face with the truth that God's heart is deeply offended by our lack of gratitude. It is not enough to be grateful in our hearts - our gratitude must be expressed. We consider it to be impolite to enjoy a beautifully prepared meal without complimenting the host or to receive a gift without thanking the person who bought it - yet we too often take for granted the blessings that God has so lovingly and graciously lavished upon us.
It raises for us the question of the focus of our existence -what do we live for? Or, rather, perhaps who? And we are being challenged by this Torah portion to ask ourselves if we are giving God the 'firstfruits' of our hearts and lives and if are we expressing our gratitude to God in our worship.
Maimonides (Rambam), the medieval Jewish philosopher, taught 'everything that is for the sake of G-d should be of the best and most beautiful. When one builds a house of prayer, it should be more beautiful than his own dwelling. When one feeds the hungry, he should feed him of the best and sweetest of his table. Whenever one designates something for a holy purpose, he should sanctify the finest of his possessions; as it is written (Leviticus 3:16), 'The choicest to G-d.'"
We should be giving of our best to the Lord and to the work of the kingdom, not what is left over. In other words, our sacrifice should be that - a sacrifice, something that actually costs us to give. It's easy to pay our bills, work out our expenses, and then give our offerings; it's harder to give our offerings and then work out our budgets, giving firstfruits of all that we have to the Lord.
The lesson and the challenge of the mitzvah of bikkurim is to keep our hearts in constant gratitude and thankfulness to God. One of the great confessions of our faith is this: 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.' Acceptable service to God then is that which is done with joy. Someone rewrote this saying: 'The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.'
Let's commit ourselves to serving our God with grateful joy, no matter what, and rejoicing in him who is the source of our joy.
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